Star Wars set for 3D rehash

Lucasfilm has finally announced that all six Star Wars films will get the 3D treatment, starting with Episode I: The Phantom Menace, due to hit tridimensional screens in 2012.

John Knoll, visual effects supervisor at Lucasfilm's Industrial Light & Magic, insisted he's "committed to ensuring that the 3D conversion delivers results as good as a movie shot and authored in 3D".

He told Variety: "Having seen a lot of stereo material, I have very strong opinions about what I like and don't like about stereo. I'm going to be applying my aesthetic. It's not going to look like [conversions] we've seen in the past."

Shoddy conversions of 2D movies such as Clash of the Titans haven't done much for the 3D revival, fuelled largely by the success of Avatar, and earlier this year it looked like audiences had quickly grown weary of the novelty.

However, Variety reckons the Star Wars rehashes "should stifle speculation that the format is a fading fad".

Bruce Snyder of 20th Century Fox, which will distribute the revamped sextet, enthused: "I expect this to be as much fun for people that have not experienced Star Wars as it was for people who were there in 1977 staring at the screen with mouth agape."

No exact release date for The Phantom Menace has been set, and the rest of the series will follow depending "on the pace of the conversion effort". ®

Bootnote

"On the pace of the conversion effort" appears to be a euphemism for "how well The Phantom Menace does at the box office". We'll leave it to the Star Wars fans among you to ponder whether kicking off the reissue with the worst film is an unwise decision.